


Porcelain

by PinotPurple



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Horror, Child Death, Fake People, Gen, Hope you like it!, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Non-graphic Murder, Piles of Nonsense 2019, Psychological Horror, Statement Fic, Victorian era, it's monstly stranger but i put a bit of all three, you asked for stranger end or buried
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 13:30:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20949128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinotPurple/pseuds/PinotPurple
Summary: Statement of Mathilda Ross, regarding the Mitchell family to which she was employed as a maid between the years 1840 and 1845. Statement taken through a letter sent to the Magnus Institute on the 10th of June 1846.





	Porcelain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LunagaleMaster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunagaleMaster/gifts).

Statement of Mathilda Ross, regarding the Mitchell family to which she was employed as a maid between the years 1840 and 1845. Statement taken through a letter sent to the Magnus Institute on the 10th of June 1846.

Statement begins.

Esteemed Sir Jonah Magnus,

I can never thank you enough for giving me the chance to share the story that has disturbed me so. I do not blame people for not believing me when I rave about porcelain dolls and respectable nobles acting like lunatics, since I myself feel overcome with lunacy when I think of what happened. I am very lucky to have my fiancé, John Warwick, who understands me and soothes me when I suffer from nightmares. With God’s will, I can put it all behind me and think no more of what transpired at the Mitchell’s manor once I send you my statement.

I began working at the Mitchell’s manor in the spring of 1840. I was fifteen years old at the time and in desperate need of money. My family was decimated by cholera, which I myself narrowly escaped. My aunts, uncles and cousins that managed to survive as well had their own hardships and didn’t take kindly to having one more person on board. I was wary of going into the world by myself, but I did not have much choice in that matter. I wished to have a fair life, earn my bread in an honest way. Once you go down the wrong path it is nearly impossible to return, I’ve seen countless neighbours suffer it.

In retrospect, I was very lucky to find the advertisement in the newspaper so quickly. The Mitchell family was in need of a maid and a gardener. They offered good pay, a room in the manor and food to eat. I took the interview the next day and moved in the following one. John Warwick and I met as we were welcomed by Mrs Mitchell and the rest of the staff. And so my new life began, with a new “family”. It must sound foolish, I know, for a servant to consider her work colleagues and her masters her family, but… it genuinely felt that way. I was in a very bad state after the death of my parents and siblings and, with a rapidity that, thinking about it now, was concerning, I grew fond of the new people around me. I dare say I loved them more and that they treated me better than my late family.

Mr George Mitchell and Mrs Florence Mitchell were such lovely people when I met them. They were good people, who treated their servants like human beings. I heard truly _horrible_ stories from other maids and workers, but the Mitchells were genuinely good to all of us. Mr Mitchell had eyes only for Mrs Mitchell and Mrs Mitchell was kind and compassionate. She caught me once crying while I was returning from shopping. I had an awful dream the night before about my parents and the whole day I was overcome with melancholy. I dropped the keys as I tried to put them in the door and it was like a dam breaking, I simply burst into tears. Mrs Mitchell was suddenly next to me, offering me a handkerchief and offering me a hug after I told her what saddened me so. She was a good woman. She didn’t deserve what happened.

Truly, the only thing I can honestly complain about the Mitchell spouses was their passion for Asian art and culture. I call it “passion” as to not directly say they were positively obsessed with it. Mrs Mitchell had “kimonos” be bought for herself and her sister-in-law. Mr Mitchell bought a “katana” sword from an auction for a price that, in my humble opinion, was _outrageous_, regardless if the thing was as old as it was claimed to be. The screens behind which Mrs Mitchell changed had hand-painted drawings on women strolling along rivers, parasols in one hand and the other to their lips. The tea we served them was strictly green. Our cook, Mr Nelson, threw a genuine fit when he was asked to make them _raw_ salmon! Mrs Mitchell made a sincere attempt to learn Japanese. Learning a foreign language is far from bad, but being greeted with those broken sounds as you walked in the room and being called “Matiruda-chan” became irritating quite fast. The Mitchell spouses would invite people over who claimed to have been in those faraway lands, or who knew others from there, who could get them antiques for very good prices. They were… weird people. I do not know how to explain and I do not wish to come across as rude, but the way they acted and behaved was most strange. It was as though travelling made them forget how to act properly human anymore. They looked human enough, as strange as a remark it is to make, but now with what I know, I am unsure of many things that happened… Oh, when they invited an “explorer” over was simply the worst. They would also scramble to go to parties where an actually Japanese singer or geisha was invited as a special guest. I wonder if they knew how much us the servants would laugh behind about it?

Mr and Mrs Mitchell were trying for a child when I was hired. A year into my employment, Mary Mitchell came into the world. She was simply adorable! She was the darling of the house. Mr Mitchell loved her like the flowers love the sun and Mrs Mitchell was practically glued to her. I was given the duty to help Mrs Mitchell around the house until she got her strength back. The birth was a hard one and at one point we feared that would be the end of the two. Mrs Mitchell told me that wanting her child was what kept her going. She thanked me and excused herself constantly for having me fuss around her. She told me she was glad she had both me and Mary with her. She said she considered me her daughter as well. It would be a lie to say that did not make me feel very happy, as I felt the same way. Mrs Mitchell was kinder to me than the servants who were actually old enough to be my mother, than my own aunts.

On the 20th of September 1842, when Mary was one year old, she suddenly got very sick. The doctors “did their best”, tried “everything they knew”. As someone who’s family died because of this “everything they knew”, I was not surprised at all when little Mary died. I swear to God, Mr Magnus, Sir, doctors have no idea what they are doing. Their prescriptions only make it worse! I mean, come _on_, how could what the adults smoke when they lounge at a party be in _any way_ beneficial for a one year old? I will stop there, as I could fill ten novels with what I think about doctors.

Mr and Mrs Mitchell were destroyed. Mr Mitchell could not talk or face anyone. Mrs Mitchell became as pale as the corpse of her child. It was horrible, especially when it came time to bury little Mary. Mrs Mitchell refused to give her away. Mr Magnus, she snatched Mary’s limp body and clutched her to her chest, absolutely refusing to let her be buried. Mrs Mitchell raved about how she wouldn’t be able to breathe down there, how the darkness would scare her poor baby. The entire scene felt like a nightmare, it felt unreal. Us, the servants, tried to calm her, to take Mary. I swear, it was like trying to get close to a wild animal. I do not mean it in an insulting way, I was genuinely terrified of the whole ordeal, I was shaking the whole time. Mrs Mitchell had lost her mind from grief.

It was Mr Mitchell who took Mary away. She pried her from her mother’s arms. Mrs Mitchell fell to ground and bawled. Mr Mitchell handed Mary over and wordlessly left. He was crying too. They were so pale, all three of them.

I went to the funeral. John Warwick went too and allowed me to support myself by his arm. I hate myself for it, you have no idea how much, but I could not bear to be near Mrs Mitchell at that moment. It was too much, all of it. It was a cloudy day when Mary’s little casket was buried. The sky was grey and all the colours were muted. It was like the world itself was grieving the poor child.

I did not like the gravedigger one bit. He was too jolly, for a funeral. I saw him dig the last handfuls of dirt as the funeral party entered the cemetery. He was doing it lively, almost… _enthusiastically_. As though what a fun thing to do it was, to dig a grave. In the state I was I decided I hated the man without even knowing him for more than a minute. After the funeral, as we all began to head back to the manor, that little freak walked up to me. John noticed my discomfort and straightened up, to his full height. The man wasn’t intimidated. He asked me about the deceased’s family. I told him, without much detail, that they were good people that had been hit by an unfair tragedy. He nodded, then continued with a question that made my blood boil. He asked _who did I think would be next?_ John threatened him to leave before he punched his teeth out. The gravedigger raised his hands in front of him and stepped backwards, smile still on his face. I told John that we were leaving. The gravedigger picked his shovel and walked away as well.

The manor was so silent when we got back. I went to Mrs Mitchell’s door. It was locked, but I had a spare key. I hesitated to enter. It was so quiet, far too much after what happened just a few hours ago. I knocked gently and called out for Mrs Mitchell. No answer. I knocked again and spoke a little louder. Still no answer. I didn’t notice in that moment, but dread washed over me and I felt very cold. I unlocked the door, announcing I was coming in. I cracked it open and saw she wasn’t in her bed. I opened the door fully and saw her by the window. I screamed. It sounded so loud in the silence of the manor.

Two days later we had another funeral. I nearly got up during the service and shouted at the priest for saying Mrs Mitchell was going to Hell for taking her own life. How _dare_ he say it in front of Mr Mitchell, in front of _us_, as if we didn’t already know? And why would she go to Hell? She wasn’t in her mind when she did it. Insane people are sent to an asylum rather than be imprisoned for a murder, why would it be different in this case? 

I was so distraught and so angry and saddened and just felt so awful. Within a week our entire world was turned upside down. I lost my family again. To make it worse, I saw that gravedigger again. He buried Mrs Mitchell. I saw him recognise me. He walked up to me again. I was crying and the lump in my throat hurt too much to talk back. I managed to croak out if he was going to ask it again. He shook his head. He said that “Mr Mitchell’s faith seems to be another one.” I asked him what he meant. He said “You wouldn’t understand. It’s better like that.” He left.

I say I was feeling bad, but Mr Mitchell was having it the worst of all of us. He wasn’t eating anymore. He would sit in his room all day, either in the bed that was too big for one, of staring out the window. He wouldn’t talk to anyone, aside from writing letters to someone. The address was always different and, from what I managed to glimpse, foreign. I think he was ordering antiques again. Or maybe selling them? I didn’t know and didn’t really pay it much mind. He didn’t seem to register we were there when we brought him food or water. We worried he had also lost his mind, but in a different way. Looking back, I saw it too, I saw it all, but at that moment, I was anything but functional myself. I worked like a machine, walked the routes through the house I knew by heart, made the usual movements to clean and cook and serve, but my mind was completely elsewhere. I had to stop frequently to stop myself from tearing up or to wipe my face if I failed. I was so tired I couldn’t fall sleep at night and if I managed, I wouldn’t be out for long and wake up in the middle of the night, surrounded by darkness and silence, and, disoriented, I would start crying again.

A week after Mary and Mrs Mitchell’s funerals, I was lying in bed. It was well past midnight, but I was awake. I simply sat in darkness, soaking my pillow in tears, when I heard a ruckus. I lit a candle and walked out to see what it was. Better than lying and being miserable, I thought.

I crept down the hallway in the servants’ quarters and up the stairs. The entrance hallway was lit by the moonlight coming through the windows. Mr Mitchell was there, I recognised him by his voice. He was talking to someone on the other side of the front door. He stepped back and two very large men came inside, carrying a wooden crate between them. They went back and did it again, this time with a smaller crate. They spoke among themselves too quietly for me to hear and then the two men left. Mr Mitchell watched them leave for a long time, I am guessing until their carriage or whatever they arrived with was out of sight. He closed the front door and turned to the crates. He glanced towards the hallway to the servants’ quarters, but I was fast and ducked away. I doubt he saw me. I went back to bed simply wondering what he had ordered. The deliverymen’s voices sounded foreign.

The next morning I got ready as usual and went about my duties. I met with John in the kitchen but he didn’t hear me when I greeted him. He was pale and his eyes had deep bags under them. I asked him if he was alright and he refused to talk. At the time I ignored it. I assumed he was grieving the same way I was, the same way all of us were.

I fetched Mr Mitchell breakfast. To my surprise, he was awake and sitting up. He greeted me, actually spoke and ate the whole plate! I felt so happy, even if it amazed me how suddenly he changed. He asked me if I gave Mrs Mitchell her breakfast as well. My heart sank. Not again. He waved it away, saying it was alright, and sent me to help her get dressed. I muttered out and answer and left. He could listen to my steps so I went to Mrs Mitchell’s room, more out of sadness rather than to follow the request. The last thing I expected was to see her there.

She was _there_! In the bed! The crib was next to it and _Mary was in it_! Mrs Mitchell was covered in a thick blanket and her hair was sprawled over the pillow. She woke up when I opened the door and greeted me with a bright smile. I sat in the doorframe, dumbfound. She was there. I watched her dangle from the curtains’ railing, watched her be set in her coffin, watched her coffin be buried, and _there she was_!! Alive and cheerful as if nothing ever happened. Mary was there, sleeping in her bed, tiny and cute as always.

Mrs Mitchell asked me if I was bringing breakfast. My mouth was still hanging open. I stuttered out that I didn’t. Mrs Mitchell said it was alright, she wasn’t hungry anyway. She scooted on the bed to look into the crib, smiling as a new mother would. I inched closer as well. Mary was fast asleep, pink lips pursed and chubby cheeks rosy. Mrs Mitchell sighed content and said she wants to wear green that day. I nodded, still not knowing what was going on and helping her out of bed. Her hand was freezing cold. And it felt hard, like it wasn’t skin. I took a step back as she went behind the Asian screens, and noticed how pale she still was. She was almost perfectly white. So was Mary.

I was confirmed I wasn’t going insane as well when the others saw Mrs Mitchell and Mary. Their reactions were very much the same. Nobody could believe what was happening, it was like dream. John grew even paler when he saw them.

And so… life continued. For three years, I continued to work for two very kind people who had a cute little girl. Mary didn’t grow gradually, like other children. You wouldn’t look at her and realise oh, how much she grew, it would literally happen overnight on her birthday. Her height and development matched the age with textbook precision. Most servants left. Others asked too many questions and “left” with a word after Mrs Mitchell asked for a word with them. It all felt like a horror story.

Do you know what was the worst, Mr Magnus? Aside from the times I came in contact with Mrs Mitchell or Mary’s skin, nothing else was wrong. It could all be overlooked and life could go on, happy and undisturbed. Mr and Mrs Mitchell treated me very well, paid me more as I took up more work with the lack of servants. I was given a better room. Mrs Mitchell told Mary I was her older sister, which she must listen. Mrs Mitchell would lend me her own clothes, I ate at the same table with them. I was their most trusted servant, the one who didn’t make a peep. I could live without a single worry ever again, loved and cared for as I cared for them, if I just… ignored it all. If I didn’t think about how the Japanese vases felt and shone like Mrs Mitchell’s skin. If, when I was getting Mary dressed, I ignore the fact her joints were connected with balls on the inside, visible through a slit so she could move. If I ignored how Mrs Mitchell and Mary didn’t need food. If I ignore the gloss over Mr Mitchell’s eyes, his pallor, his new twitchy and agitated way of acting. I don’t blame him for being not sane anymore, but I do not pardon him at all for what he did.

John left the manor first. Even if I wanted to follow, I didn’t have where else to go. Word got out that Mrs Mitchell and Mary were suddenly back from the dead. I heard from the former servants that they were having a hard time finding new work with the knowledge they were associated with them.

Mr Nelson, the cook, died of a heart attack in the January of 1845. And so I was the last servant left. During the funeral I looked around for that gravedigger. I dared not search for him by myself until then. I saw him. He wasn’t burying Mr Nelson, but he was there, in the cemetery, seemingly taking a walk. I snuck away from the funeral party and went to him. He didn’t seem to recognise me. I told him he buried Mrs Mitchell and her daughter. He looked even more confused. He asked how, they were right there. He couldn’t finish the sentence without smiling. God, how I wished John were there to punch him. 

I asked him directly what was going on, what Mr Mitchell did. He shrugged. He wasn’t there when it happened, he didn’t know. I grabbed him by the collar and told him to be useful. He raised his eyebrows at me, but spoke. He said he heard about “the deliverymen” coming by a few years ago, but that was it. He said that when they come around, bad things usually happen. Around the same time, four men, those two and other two, came to his cemetery and one of them unearthed two graves. It annoyed the gravedigger greatly, but he stayed put, not wishing to get in a fight he would lose. I asked who the other two men were, already guessing one was Mr Mitchell. He said so, and that the other one was “my little boyfriend”. When I heard this, the realisation of why John was acting so strange hit me like a train. He helped Mr Mitchell make this fake family possible. He kept it secret all this time.

I let the gravedigger go. My hand was brown with dust. The gravedigger told me he wanted his dead back. Mr Mitchell was fighting against death, against nature. He should have been grateful his wife and child were put to peaceful rest. I left without answering. 

I looked for John. I found him drinking. I told him I knew everything. His eyes went wide and he choked on brandy. It took a lot of asking followed by pestering, but he spoke. The alcohol made his tongue loose. Mr Mitchell came to him in the middle of the night after Mrs Mitchell’s funeral, telling him to get his shovel. Mr Mitchell’s eyes were wild and John felt very scared for his life. Mr Mitchell took him to the cemetery and the realisation made John nearly vomit with dread. There were two other men there, with a carriage. They were huge, he said. He doubted they were human in the first place. Mr Mitchell ordered John to unearth Florence and Mary. If he refused, he would simply be killed. John is alone too, no one would have searched for him. So he did it. The men took the coffins and loaded them in the carriage. Mr Mitchell took John back to the manor and told him to be quiet or else. The manor was in such a mess that no noticed his distress had a different reason. I asked him if he thought Mrs Mitchell and Mary were the same ones as the ones that died. He didn’t know. He hoped not. I did too.

I went back to the manor and told John to come the next day. We would confront Mrs Mitchell. I thought the plan over and over. I decided to hit Mrs Mitchell’s hand, have something fall on it, watch it break, so she had no excuse or way to hide. I thought there was no point in subtlety anymore. Not after all that happened. I had lived like that for four years, four years that felt surreal, something out of a story. I was done with it, now that I knew what Mr Mitchell did. What he did to the kind and wonderful Mrs Mitchell and to their daughter, what it must have been done to their corpses… Even if nothing was done at all, if they were used simply as models for the new ones, why did he have to unearth them and give them away? It was _wrong_. He replaced his wife and child with _dolls_, he put everyone through it and expected we just deal with it. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. I would have no regret by the next day. Perhaps I did lose my mind as well.

I found Mrs Mitchell in the library. I went to her when it was only us, Mr Mitchell out in town. Mrs Mitchell was in a chair, reading quietly. She was with her back to the door, to me. I gripped the hammer I took from the shed tighter. I walked to her, careful not to make noise. I must have failed, because she turned around and looked at me. She glanced at the hammer in my hand and her smile fell. She closed the book and got up. Mrs Mitchell wasn’t that tall.

She was about to ask me what the hammer was for, when I swung it at her face. It broke with the clear, dramatic sound that is specific to porcelain. Mrs Mitchell clutched at her face, horrified, her remaining eye so wide it threatened to roll out. The inside of her head was _empty_; it was exactly like a doll. I could see the rolls of thread where her hair grew from. Her mouth and chin were gone, but a shrill scream was still coming from somewhere.

I charged at her and hit her again and again before she could recover. I destroyed her head, then her chest, then her shoulders. She went limp. The dress caved where the body was gone. The library’s floor was full of white shards of porcelain and fake hair. On a few shards was the paint from her eyes and lips.

I got up to my feet, panting. I felt a presence in the doorway. I looked up and saw Mr Mitchell. All colour was drained from his face, looking an awful lot like his wife. He looked mortified at the floor, then at me, still holding the hammer. His face flushed an angry red with a speed that scared me. Faster than I could react, he grabbed me by the arm and threw me into a wall. I fell down and expected kicks and punches, but instead I heard Mr Mitchell shout in pain.

I looked up and saw John hitting Mr Mitchell. He was beating him and winning. Mr Mitchell fell over what remained of Mrs Mitchell, crushing it. I quickly got up and gave John the hammer. He made good use of it.

We were silent as we looked at the corpse of Mr Mitchell. Both of us were panting. Mrs Mitchell wasn’t getting up anymore either. I looked at John. He looked so tired. He said that Mary’s left. I froze despite myself. It was him who did it. I waited outside the door, hearing the porcelain shatter. Mary didn’t even have time to scream. We left before anyone could check on the noise. The silence of the manor got suspicious after a while and neighbours checked, despite their apprehension. What they found were a brutally murdered and rotting Mr Mitchell on top of one of Mrs Mitchell’s dresses, two rooms full of broken porcelain, a missing woman and child, and a missing maid. John hid me until we ran away from London. We changed our names. I wrote my real one in this letter for the sake of it. No one can find me by it anymore. John made some… _interesting_ friends while drowning his sorrow away in taverns. Friends that provided us with fake documents.

Life isn’t easy. John and I work odd jobs and move often. He doesn’t have time to drink and I don’t have time to mope. John took to doing less legal jobs, stealing and hustling and being a goon. I grit my teeth and do it at his side. People leave their guard down when there’s a nice-looking young lady who doesn’t look like she could hurt a fly. We found another city to settle in, where no one knows us. I dyed my hair and John let his beard grow for good measure. It won’t be easy in the future either, but I do believe it’s better like this. We are getting married in August. We help one-another keep going. But Mrs Mitchell plagues my dreams. I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like for John. I dream I am back in the manor, all four of us a happy family, Mr and Mrs Mitchell my parents and little Mary my little sister. All four of us, including myself, are made of porcelain. Other than that, I haven’t encountered anything strange since then. I never saw or heard of the deliverymen again. That gravedigger didn’t get his corpses back, but Mr Mitchell will have to do.

Thank you so, so much, Mr Magnus, for listening to me. I could never thank you enough. I dread going to a church confessional as I’d confess to a murder, but by the time this letter arrives, John and I will be gone and with our shoulders lighter. I wish you nothing but the best and may you receive accounts to your heart's content.

Thank you once more,

Mathilda Ross

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaaa, I hope you you like it, LunagaleMaster! It was so much fun to write!  



End file.
